


Personal Notes (40) Choose your battles carefully.

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [40]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, M/M, urgh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 14:05:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1943979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Khoshekh comes home and tried to oust his rival, Cecil gets petty revenge on Daniel and Carlos manages to do something romantic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Notes (40) Choose your battles carefully.

I have not felt much like writing my diary recently. It has been almost a month since last time. I talked to Ell yesterday about stopping the medication because I feel a lot better and I think it dulls my brain a little. I have made almost no further progress myself out at the silo, leaving the delicate electronics work to Aleck and checking in with Fey now and then. Aleck says it is almost done, the power cables we needed were salvaged from the main silo and the militia has tapped into three different substations for electrical power. We estimate another month or so and we can run the first tests. Fey knows what she needs to do and says it's just numbers, urgh, but at least she gets to change the numbers if she wants.

Ell told me to stick with medication for at least another couple of months then perhaps reduce the dose little by little. Better, she said, is a relative term. She asked, do you feel good? She handed Cecil three months' supply and told him to make sure I took them correctly and absolutely not let me simply stop without weaning off them properly. I asked Cecil later if my paranoia about Ell might have been a symptom of my depression, but he said, "No, I know she's up to something but at least she loves you enough to make sure you're okay."

I have been back at the lab more over the past month, but not full time. I _think_ full time, but don't want company. I talked to Cecil about the blueshifted light from the dog park and the house that isn't there but he did not know anything more about it. There is a lot to do at the house that isn't there. Cynthia tolerates us as long as we are not too intrusive. The blueshift is still increasing and our seismometers are registering strong earthquakes deep under ground that, as usual, nobody can feel at ground level. Something is coming, something we can feel but we can't see.

Leah is back, but different. She has a new prosthesis that appears to be permanent, very lifelike, and no memory of threatening to blackmail me. She and Estrella are coping best they can with the after effects of Leah's betrayal and re-education. Estrella knows what happened, Leah told her before she _"went home to Chicago"._ I'm surprised to find that I feel sorry for Leah. Duped and dumped. Estrella has developed a quiet but intense hatred of Strex and assures me that she can be trusted. I believe her. I asked Estrella if she would be kind to Leah, told her that I had been through re-education and that Leah needed a friend. Estrella burst into tears and hurled loud, vitriolic verbal abuse at Strex, not caring who might be listening in. Ell came in and hushed her, whispered to her, then mouthed at me, _talk later._

Ell was as cryptic as she could be. She was trying to confuse me or anyone eavesdropping, I am not sure which. _I am not who I was. I am not who I became. I am not what you suspect. I am on the right side._ I told her I didn't trust her fully, but asked her to do me a favour anyway. She agreed, laughing at me.

Cecil managed to retrieve the remains of the strexpet from Daniel's booth and smuggle it to the lab. Gio and Estrella took it apart and made a kind of crude remote control out of some of the components and a radio transmitter circuit. They showed Cecil how to use it but said it would only cause Daniel minor malfunctions rather than any kind of control override. Cecil can now shut down Daniel's cooling system from a distance of about thirty feet. I offered Cecil the use of a sledgehammer to pound the rest of the strexpet's parts into dust. 

I truly hope I never make him angry.

Dana has been in touch with Cecil again. She says that Intern Maureen is fine and so is John Peters, which is good news. She has made some allies. Dana appears to be able to travel in time although without much control, I must ask Cecil to ask her how she does that.

After Cecil's show a couple of weeks ago I picked him up a two blocks away from the station and drove him to collect Khoshekh from the animal hospital. Cecil has been looking after the kittens that still hover in the station men's room. I asked him to chart their growth rate but he told me they were so cute playing with the measuring tape I gave him that he let them have it as a toy until it was stretched and shredded at the ends. Cecil sounded so happy chatting about the kittens and cooing over how cute they are, batting at the tape and trying to steal it from each other, that I couldn't be upset with him. 

Cecil has prepared the house for Khoshekh's convalescence. There is a cat basket in his study and in the kitchen a cupboard entirely stocked with Khoshekh's favourite food and a set of pet bowls of various designs - fish, mice, birds, corks, frogs, octopuses and one with wave symbols and "feed me frequently" from me. There is a box of cat toys in the lounge and a box of Clarytin in the bathroom, but that is for me. Youknowthefarmer. Dammit!

Khoshekh has lost an eye and part of a paw. He is big for a "cat" but is mostly feline in looks and temperament. That is to say he is furtive, furry, evil and utterly adorable when he wants something. He looks a bit like a snake-toothed Maine Coon with an impressive row of venomous spines, one protruding from each thoracic vertebra. As a precaution, I asked the vet to empty the venom sacs and keep a sample for me to analyse. From Khoshekh's looks and general demeanour I expected it to be a powerful fast-acting toxin that would result in painful death or terrifying, suffocating paralysis. I was surprised to find it was a sedative with potentially useful medical properties. I asked Ell to replicate my analysis just in case and she agreed with me. Khoshekh's defence mechanism involves sending unwary attackers to sleep. Of course, he still has those impressive hinged teeth and claws.

When we got him home, Cecil carried him into the house, into the study and put him on the cat basket. He stayed there for about three seconds then howled (that is not exaggeration) to be allowed to explore. He did one full circuit of the house, including cupboards and a complaint at that odd door in the spare room that doesn't go anywhere, then settled on "my" seat of the sofa and went to sleep. Cecil followed him around, chirping out a running commentary: 

_Oooh come and look Carlos! He wants to get in the shower! NO! That's not a toy! Ummm, Carlos... are there any spare toothbrushes?_  
 _So cute! Carlos, come and see! He's opening the wardrobe! NO! Khoshekh! Umm, Carlos... Khoshekh owes you a new shirt._  
 _Aaaaw! He found your favourite pen. He's carrying it... NO! Carlos, you've got enough pens, yes? You don't need that one you kept by the bed, right?_  
 _Sweeeet! He can open drawers! Khoshekh really likes your stuff, he's so cute digging through your boxers. No! Khoshekh, NO!... Oh crap... Carlos, could you bring up the washing basket and maybe glue some locks on the wardrobes and cupboards?_

Khoshekh and I are locked into a battle of wills. He hates me. Not in the "I'm going to scratch and bite and make you bleed" way, but in the calculating, malevolent "I'm going to make Cecil love me and hate you" way. Cecil thinks it's sweet to have us fighting over him. At night, Khoshekh batters his way into the bedroom (we tried keeping the door shut but he just throws himself at it until either the door or Cecil gives in), shimmies up between us, puts his back against Cecil, four paws against me and _pushes_ before settling down to sleep. Khoshekh in the crook of Cecil's arm and me in the bathroom, face streaming, looking for the Clarytin and trying not to cough and sneeze in case I wake Cecil. On movie nights in, Khoshekh rubs across my face until I have to get up to deal with my runny eyes and nose. When I come back he is in my space, snuggled up to Cecil, eyeing me with his _I won_ look.

I swear he has pissed on every item of clothing of mine he can find. Fortunately he makes exceptions for items I am actually wearing at the time and he has not figured out how to unlock the cupboards. If that cat develops thumbs, I'm screwed. But Cecil loves him and I love Cecil so I'm learning to cope. He is kind of cute sometimes. When Cecil is out and it's just us two, he follows me around, winding around my legs when I try to go downstairs and leaving his toys out on the steps for me to play with him. A few days ago I was supposed to be making dinner for Cecil and Khoshekh stuck me with one of his spines so that I fell asleep for a couple of hours. I made a point of ordering a pizza flavour he wouldn't like and thanking him for giving me a couple of hours much needed rest. You never know how much animals understand. When I explained to Cecil what a good boy Khoshekh had been, the cat slunk off and sulked all evening. We took the opportunity to watch a movie and do a little furtive _science._

That odd door. I have taken spectrograph readings from it and am relieved to find no blueshift. I tell myself that it is just an architectural anomaly. I have a nagging feeling that nothing is ever quite that simple in Night Vale.

There is a very subdued mood around town now. Most of the older children and young adults are either working in strex-approved employment or with Tamika's militia or with the Girlscouts. Strex owns almost everything in Night Vale now, including the Girlscouts since a couple of weeks ago on Cecil's show Lauren announced that they needed to find all the talented girls. Cecil warned them and very few returned from their camp in the sand wastes. I know Janice is safe, Fey has seen her at the silo.

Nobody goes out unless they have to. The streets are quiet, schools mostly silent, people scurry with heads down. It is such a contrast to how vibrant and strange this community was almost two years ago! And Cecil reports on all of it. If anyone is able to listen, really hear him. Listen to what he is not saying. I hope they step up when they are called upon, when it counts. 

How did we not see this coming? Nothing was hidden. Nothing was illegal. We could have taken their pattern of activity, extrapolated and revealed their planned outcomes. How did we not see it? Stop it? Why did we sit back and let it happen? This insidious, gradual takeover of everything we loved, everything that made this place uniquely Night Vale, by that which we hate. 

Cecil has been told to focus his reporting on the mayoral elections. They are soon and there is going to be a debate between that fucking dragon and the Faceless Old Woman. I hope I can go along, if only to distract Cecil away before he gets himself eaten by mister five-ugly-faces. He has had less work from the station. Lauren seems to have backed off after Khoshekh's injury, Cecil wouldn't tell me much but I think they had some kind of argument. Cecil is home early most evenings and we can snuggle on the sofa and watch movies. We're alternating between westerns and spy movies. 

We had a date night, the first time in months that we have gone out to do something _normal_. We agreed in advance topics we would not discuss. We had mushrooms for dinner. I jokingly asked Cecil if he'd like to do science on the trees in Mission Grove Park. He laughed, we held hands as we walked to the park and Cecil stroked my face under the trees. "Remember this?" he asked. I did.  
"Come on," I said, taking his arm and leading him out of the park.  
"Where to now?" he asked.  
"Wait and see!"

I led Cecil back to the car and told him to drive to the lab. He parked out front and I said, "remember this?" held his face and kissed him just once, just softly. I continued, a little hesitant. "There is no buzzing energy cloud tonight to take me away from you. Cecil, would you like to come upstairs for coffee?"  
"That would be, that would be neat!"

I led Cecil upstairs to my old apartment. It was exactly as I had asked Ell to arrange it. Gio only uses it for storage now, he mostly lives at Ell's.  
"So, that coffee?" Cecil asked, with a grin that said more than words could.  
"I don't actually have any coffee, but..."  
"Oh? That's a relief." He closed the distance between us and we knew the apartment well enough to find our way to the bedroom without having to look.

Cecil had a whole show to write this week with no official news items. To clarify, he had received a script from Lauren but refused to use any of it. I asked what he was going to say and he shrugged. Said he would have to follow one of the black sedans around for a day because they are always around where the news is happening.

Until I heard his show tonight, I assumed he was joking.


End file.
